District Technology Capacity Survey December 2014
Purpose of District Technology Capacity Survey To further support our schools during Oregon s transition to new state tests, ODE administered a survey to collect information regarding our state s technology readiness. This work is an important step in ensuring our schools and districts have the overall technological capacity to deploy the Smarter Balanced assessments. We extend our appreciation to those districts that participated in the survey.
118 respondents from 107 districts and 11 programs (out of 197 total districts) Regional distribution and large/small district representation Annex SD #29 Coquille SD Gaston La Grande SD Nyssa SD Reynolds SD #7 Springfield.Public Schools Arlington SD 3 Corvallis SD Glide SD Lake Oswego SD Oakridge SD Riverdale SD St Paul Astoria Crane Elementary #4 Grants Pass SD Marcola SD Ontario SD Rogue River SD #35 St. Helens SD 502 Athena-Weston SD Crook County SD Gresham-Barlow SD McMinnville SD 40 Oregon City SD Salem-Keizer Public Schools Suntex SD #10 Baker SD 5J Culver SD Harney County SD #3 Medford SD 549C OTSD Scappoose SD Three Rivers SD Beaverton SD Dallas SD #2 Harney SD 4 Medford SD #2048 Paisley SD South Harney SD #33 Tigard - Tualatin SD Burnt River SD David Douglas SD #40 Harrisburg SD Milton Freewater Unified SD #7 Perrydale South Wasco County SD Tillamook SD/YCEP Butte Falls SD Diamond SD #7 Hermiston SD 8R Mitchell SD Philomath SD (1900) Spray SD #1 Umatilla SD Canby SD Double-O SD #28 High Desert ESD High Desert Children's Program Molalla River SD Phoenix-Talent Schools Springfield.Public Schools Vale SD # 84 CBD9 Douglas Co SD #15 Hillcrest and MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility Monroe SD #1J Pine Creek SD #5 Scio SD Wallowa SD Centennial SD Douglas County SD #4 Hood River County SD Multnomah Education Service District Pine Eagle SD Seaside SD Warrenton-Hammond Central Linn SD 552C Douglas ESD Imbler SD Nestucca Valley SD Pinehurst SD 94 Sheridan SD Willamette Education SD Central Point SD 6 Drewsey SD # 13 JDEP North Clackamas SD Pleasant Hill SD Sherwood SD Woodburn SD Central SD 13J Falls City SD Jefferson SD 14J North Powder Port Orford-Langlois SD 2CJ Sisters SD Yamhill-Carlton Clackamas ESD Fern Ridge SD Jewell #8 North santiam Portland Public Schools South Harney SD #33 Yoncalla SD 32 Clatskanie 6J Forest Grove SD Klamath County SD North Wasco County SD Powers South Wasco County SD YCEP COIC Frenchglen SD Klamath Falls City Schools North Wasco County SD #21 - JDEP Program Reedsport SD Spray SD #1
A look at our respondents by role The majority of our respondents were DTCs and/or IT Managers
Preparation and Confidence Ratings
Student Preparation 60 districts (54%) indicated they have used the Smarter Balanced Practice Tests to ensure that your district s network and computers are ready to deploy the operational assessments 21 districts didn t know if they had used the practice tests 30 districts have not yet used the practice tests 23 districts (21%) are very confident in their students comfort with keyboarding skills 51 districts are somewhat confident 27 districts lack confidence 9 districts express serious concerns Note: of Oregon s 197 districts, 107 districts and 11 programs responded
Confidence Ratings 54 districts (49%) are very confident in their district s overall technological capacity to successfully administer the Smarter Balanced tests 50 districts are somewhat confident 5 districts lacked confidence 2 districts expressed serious concerns 66 districts (59%) are very confident that their internet connection and schools networks can handle the transmission of the Smarter Balanced tests 42 districts are somewhat confident 2 districts lacked confidence 1 district expressed serious concerns 73 districts (65%) anticipate either no impact or an absorbable impact on other business uses of their network and internet connections 34 districts anticipate a slight negative impact 5 districts anticipate a significant impact 81 districts (73%) express no concerns that firewalls, network filtering software, or monitoring systems might impede delivery of the Smarter Balanced tests 15 districts didn t know 15 expressed concern Note: of Oregon s 197 districts, 107 districts and 11 programs responded
Districts with concerns about capacity 7 districts expressed either a lack of confidence or serious concerns about their district s overall technological capacity to successfully administer the Smarter Balanced tests. These districts shared the following insight into their concerns: I was a field test school. We had problems with our current system. Our IT department worked to resolve the issues. I feel like we have an inferior system and any changes to technology upgrades requirements that are needed will make my issues greater. Our big concerns are: having enough computers and devices, and the wireless capacity issues. We are a small rural school district and we rely on the SOESD to serve all of our technology needs. We often have internet problems with day to day in house internet use. If Smarter Balanced takes a lot of bandwidth to run, it may cause reciprocal problems for the rest of school. At the moment we are only able to run one T 1 line to our school. Note: of Oregon s 197 districts, 107 districts and 11 programs responded
Preparation of districts with concerns about capacity Of the 7 districts who expressed either a lack of confidence or serious concerns about their district s overall technological capacity to successfully administer the Smarter Balanced tests: 4 have not yet used the practice tests 3 lack confidence or have serious concerns that their internet connection and schools networks can handle the transmission of the Smarter Balanced tests 6 anticipate slight to significant impact on other business uses of their networks and internet connections 3 have concerns that firewalls, network filtering software, or monitoring systems might impede delivery of the Smarter Balanced tests 4 lack confidence or have serious concerns about students comfort with keyboarding and using a stylus Note: of Oregon s 197 districts, 107 districts and 11 programs responded
Technology Configurations
Operating Systems Operating Systems Responses* Windows 7 96 Chromebook (v. 31 or higher) 50 ipad with ios 8 27 Windows XP (service pack 3) 25 ipad with ios 7.0 or 7.1 25 Mac 10.9 20 Windows 8.0 or 8.1 19 Mac 10.8 16 Mac 10.7 13 Mac 10.6 12 Server 2008 8 ipad with ios 6.0 or 6.1 8 Mac 10.5 (Intel) 5 Linux Ubuntu 12.04 (LTS) 3 Android 4.0.4 4.4 3 Linux Ubuntu 14.04 (LTS) 2 Total Respondents: 110 Many districts plan to test using a combination of multiple operating systems No districts indicated that they planned to use the following operating systems: Server 2003 Linux Fedora 16 20 Linux opensuse 13.1 Linux Red Hat Enterprise 6.5 Linux Ubuntu 10.04 (LTS) *Districts were free to select multiple operating systems Note: of Oregon s 197 districts, 107 districts and 11 programs responded
Internet connection types Connection Type Responses Broadband connections of 50MB or higher 57 Broadband connections between 10MB and 24 50MB T1 lines 17 Broadband connections of 10MB or less 6 Microwave wireless 5 DSL lines 3 Satellite uplinks 0 Sites with no internet connection 0 Other 7 Total Respondents: 107 Note: of Oregon s 197 districts, 107 districts and 11 programs responded
Test Environment Configurations Most districts do NOT plan to use a virtual desktop environment 72 districts (65%) do NOT plan to use a virtual desktop environment 18 districts (16%) plan to use a virtual desktop environment to configure computers used for Smarter Balanced testing 21 districts (19%) didn t know Most districts plan to use a combination of wired and wireless internet networks 72 districts (64%) plan to use a combination 32 districts (29%) plan to use a wired network only 5 districts (4%) plan to use a wireless network only 3 districts (3%) didn t know Most districts plan to use a combination of permanent and portable test environments 64 districts (57%) plan to use a combination 43 districts (37%) plan to use a dedicated, permanent environment only 5 districts (4%) plan to use a portable environment only 2 districts (2%) didn t know Note: of Oregon s 197 districts, 107 districts and 11 programs responded
Comments
Comments Operating Systems and Access to Devices The biggest hurdle is providing enough devices and providing enough wireless capacity to handle getting students through the tests as efficiently as possible. Both of these are funding constrained, and we are doing the best we can, but we have limited newer technology that is capable of handling the SBAC & OAKS assessments. The number of available devices for students to use and the length of the SBAC tests are a concern. Especially at our high school. Our big concerns are: having enough computers and devices, and the wireless capacity issues. Very concerned about the length of time students will need to test. If the new tests will take longer per student, then will we have the numbers of devices to get all students tested in the shorter testing window.
Comments Internet Connection and Bandwidth Currently do not have enterprise class wireless to support wireless testing. Our district has been running several pilots already. I was a field test school. We had problems with our current system. Our IT department worked to resolve the issues. I feel like we have an inferior system and any changes to technology upgrades requirements that are needed will make my issues greater. Wireless density, processing/filtering requests we have very spotty connections As we are required to do more testing we need more bandwidth and newer computers/tablets. We did some Smarter Balance testing last year at 2 of our campuses, one worked, the other did not. But later found it was an issue outside our network. I have completed the diagnostics tool test for bandwidth last school year and it stated no problem for 1000 tests at one time, but we will not know for sure until the day comes that we are testing. I know I have a strong network, just concerned. We intend to use a multi tiered and time adjusted model to be able to measure impact if any on our system, students testing, or students not testing. We are a small rural school district and we rely on the SOESD to serve all of our technology needs. We often have internet problems with day to day in house internet use. If Smarter Balanced takes a lot of bandwidth to run, it may cause reciprocal problems for the rest of school. At the moment we are only able to run one T 1 line to our school.
Take-Aways for Districts
Key Take-Aways for Districts Use the practice test to confirm your district s technology readiness for the Smarter Balanced assessments. ODE has developed a Tech Check document to guide districts through using the Smarter Balanced practice test to confirm technological compatibility with certain features of the tests. Use the bandwidth checker on the student practice test log in page of the OAKS Portal to confirm that your district has sufficient bandwidth to administer the Smarter Balanced assessments. Develop your school level test windows to take into consideration factors such as the number of computers available for testing, as well as the configuration of the test environment (e.g., permanent testing lab in an established location vs. a portable lab that can be moved from location to location). ODE has posted a promising practice with sample school level test schedules to help guide districts through the process of establishing school level test windows to the Promising Practice webpage. Provide students with opportunities to practice keyboarding skills. ODE is developing a promising practice with tips on practical ways that districts can incorporate practice opportunities into instruction. Please check the Promising Practice webpage for updates soon!